DEJA VU

United Airlines -- Not a fitting name for a worldwide travel company that owned two hotel chains and a rental car company, reasoned CEO Richard J. Ferris. In the spring of 1987, UAL Inc. took on the grand name of Allegis. The name, explained the New York corporate identity firm that came up with it, was a blend of "allegiance" for loyalty and "aegis" for protection. But the name change and Mr. Ferris' high-flying travel company strategy were ridiculed on Wall Street. Mr. Ferris was ousted months later and his short-lived travel conglomerate was broken up. His successor, Stephen M. Wolf, changed the holding company's name back to UAL Corp. to reflect its singular airline business.

Waste Management Inc. -- This moniker was considered too mundane for a global environmental services company, renamed WMX Technologies Inc. in 1993. Founder and CEO Dean Buntrock had diversified into hazardous waste treatment, construction and engineering, and had expanded the waste hauler overseas. But two years later, the Oak Brook company came under fire from dissident shareholders, who argued that the diversification strategy had diffused the company's focus and contributed to a lagging performance. Last year, the company shed most of its non-core operations and changed its name back to Waste Management Inc. And the name is slated to survive the company's pending merger with Houston-based USA Waste Services Inc.

Kraft -- The north suburban food giant tweaked its name with each turn of its corporate structure. In 1980, Kraft Inc. merged with Los Angeles housewares company Dart Industries Inc. to form Dart & Kraft Inc. But the merger was undone seven years later with the spinoff of the Dart businesses as Premark Inc. Kraft returned to its old name, but only for a year. Following its 1988 acquisition by Philip Morris Cos., Kraft was merged with the cigarette maker's other food subsidiary to form Kraft General Foods. A mid-'90s restructuring renamed the company Kraft Foods Inc.

The ownership game: They've been sliced, diced and put back together again

The upshot of 20 years of mergers and acquisitions is that companies get gobbled up and spit out like so many sunflower seeds. They often land back where they were in the first place. The winners? Sometimes the shareholders, but always the lawyers and investment bankers.

Borg-Warner Corp. -- This diversified Chicago company went private in a 1987 leveraged buyout to fend off a hostile bid. To pay off debt, it sold its profitable chemicals and plastics operation. The remaining security and automotive businesses split in 1993, and both are now publicly traded.

American Hospital Supply Corp. -- The distributor of hospital products was acquired by Baxter International Inc. in 1985, but the low-margin operation depressed Baxter's stock. The business was spun off in 1996 as Allegiance Corp., which is even identified with a variation of American Hospital Supply's dotted-cross logo.

A. C. Nielsen Co. -- The Northbrook-based market research firm best known for its television ratings service was sold to business information giant Dun & Bradstreet Corp. in 1984. But years of slugging it out with archrival Information Resources Inc. took a toll on the locally based Nielsen market research unit, which was spun off by D&B in 1996. The reformulated ACNielsen Corp. is based in Stamford, Conn., but U.S. operations are in Schaumburg.

The TV ratings business, Nielsen Media Research, is separate in the U.S. but linked overseas.

Centel Corp. -- CEO John Frazee engineered the sale of this local and cellular phone company to Sprint Corp. in 1993, but the Kansas telecommunications giant spun off the cellular business three years later to concentrate on its new generation of wireless technology. The Chicago-based successor company, 360§ Communications Co., is now being acquired by Arkansas-based Alltel Corp.

Dean Witter & Co. -- Sears, Roebuck and Co. hoped to teach Americans to buy their stocks where they buy their socks when it acquired the retail brokerage in 1981, later changing the name to Dean Witter Discover. Twelve years later, Sears fessed up to a failed strategy by spinning off a successful, stand-alone Dean Witter that had grown under wunderkind Philip Purcell. The white-bread firm merged with white-shoe investment banker Morgan Stanley Group Inc. last year.

And finally, the advertising game

Did somebody say McDonald's? -- When Keith Reinhard of DDB Needham lost the bulk of the agency's McDonald's Corp. business to Chicago's Leo Burnett Co. in 1981, he vowed to win back the account, no matter how long it took. Culminating a 15-year crusade, Mr. Reinhard, creator of the "You deserve a break today" jingle, wrested back most of the coveted account last year, representing about $400 million in billings. The defection was a particular blow to Burnett, already reeling from the loss of the $100-million United Airlines account.